Trips and Delirium: Introduction by Armand Assante (Part)

I am extremely humbled to have been asked to venture a thought on a recent collection of Elio Mancuso’s poems “Trips and Delirium” in english. To me this book is a relentless journey of well travelled thoughts filled with viscerally earned wisdom and I can well appreciate what this most certainly reads like in his native italian, but as one from the road, Elio is more than american enough. Elio is a man who as learned that the sweetness, sensitivity and frailty within all of us is sometimes savored in it’s deepest implications after the bitter explosions in our lives have settled, and perhaps the combustion has evaporated. We are left with either residue or dust, and what we take from it, is up to us. How better to put it than in his own words.“Life rides us with sharp spurs, love is not the lollipop fallen from the lips of a child, because the time you have available is infinite only when you make it infinite…”“Bite the chains and break the teeth of the road that others have denied to you.”Elio Mancuso, “Trips and Delirium”.This is a powerful song poem filled with provocative meditations.Armand Assante